Several days ago I read a couple of details in a story on the traficking of children in India that stayed with me. One was how unaware the realities of trafficking are is to most people in India, and the one that haunts me that young girls who were stolen as children to be trafficked were given hormone shots such as Oxytocin to makes them mature more quickly. That one detail evoked the horrors of that trade and I keep wondering about the effects of those shots on the girls’ whole lives. Although India has something like half the trafficked children in the world, the consequences of trafficking are invisible in just about all the countries where it occurs, including the U.S. The city of San Diego is doing something about it by having started The Ugly Truth campaign. The city has been identified by the FBI as one of 13 US cities with a high concentration of child prostitution. The campaign will use billboards, radio spots, videos to be run in elevators and health clubs and posters at bus shelters. The idea is to bridge what the campaign organizers see as a disconnect between the reality of sex trafficking and the community. It is hoped that by being more aware, having a better understanding of the conditions and consequences, that people will be more willing to work against human trafficking. The campaign however will run three months. It seems not long enough. But it needn’t stop us from educating ourselves and getting involved in some way or at least learn to identify the signs should we encounter a possible victim.
Trafficked Children and “The Ugly Truth”
This is a terrible situation wherever vulnerable young girls fall into the hands of those who would destroy their young lives and futures for their own selfish profit
Awareness of the problem is a first step. There must also be stricter penalties for those who promote the prostituting of youth. For too long it has been the girls themselves who are punished and shunned as if they were the wrong doers. Their captors are the ones who must be held accountable. This justice is long overdue.
Time for a new approach.